Book of Daze: Mind Your Own Business Day

Mind Your Own Business Day traces its origins to August 14, 1974, in Ames, Iowa, when town assessor Eugene Vane, 58, who owned fourteen corduroy jackets and refused to recognize Nebraska as a sovereign territory, saw his neighbor rolling a clawfoot bathtub filled with turnip greens into a detached garage at dawn.

Vane asked no questions. He went inside and ate a cold sausage. The republic endured.

Modern life has abandoned such restraint. People now demand explanations for activities requiring nothing more than an averted gaze and the private acknowledgment that people have their own  arrangements.

To honor Mind Your Own Business Day, civic leaders recommend practicing selective blindness.

“If you see a man in full fencing gear carrying a wet mattress through a laundromat at noon, you do not inquire about his hygiene, his sport, or the mattress,” said Martha Gribble, 62, a freelance grain-elevator inspector who claims she can hear when a radish goes soft underground. “You examine the stitching on your thumb until he departs.”

Proper observance also means refraining from asking why the gentleman in aisle six needs thirty-two jars of tartar sauce and a shovel. It means staring into the middle distance while a postal worker kicks a vending machine until it dispenses soup. Above all, it means deleting neighborhood alerts warning that an unfamiliar dog has been sniffing a hydrant with criminal intent.

Minding your own business may initially feel unnatural. Citizens accustomed to demanding context are advised to begin with minor mysteries: an unexplained ladder, a parked van containing one folding chair, or a neighbor washing a single brick.

Civilization did not fall because people lacked curiosity. It began to wobble the moment everybody wanted a receipt.

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